Sharad Pawar

Calcutta: Initially, the Sharad Pawar camp wasn’t too pleased that the Board AGM would be reconvened (on Tuesday) not many hours after the final India-South Africa ODI in Mumbai.

The unhappiness was over getting little time to “recover” after the day-night match and, secondly, that fog here could delay the arrival of Pawar and his Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) aides the next morning.

That risk, though, has been eliminated with the powerful Union minister deciding to leave Mumbai for Calcutta aboard a special flight almost immediately after the ODI.

“Mr Pawar, I understand, has arranged for a seven-seater. The flight will leave at midnight or thereabouts,” MCA treasurer Prof. Ratnakar Shetty told The Telegraph.

Besides Prof. Shetty, the passengers (as of late Saturday) are to include former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar.

Nobody is talking of a compromise and challenger Pawar’s camp is confident of ending Jagmohan Dalmiya’s hold.

The MCA chief, it may be recalled, lost in his 2004 presidential bid on account of Dalmiya’s casting vote.

Ranbir Singh Mahendra scraped through, but his days seem numbered.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court-appointed observer T.S.Krishnamurthy has landed and is to “hear” affiliates who have come under his scanner for one reason or the other.

The exercise, which has put the Dalmiya group under severe pressure, is to conclude by Sunday evening.

Incidentally, Dalmiya is among those to have already met the former chief election commissioner.